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Esdrás Zabaleta-Ramirez: Detained by ICE for more than a month, approved by a judge to be released on bond.
Esdrás Zabaleta-Ramirez took one big step closer to being freed from ICE detention Thursday — after a federal immigration court judge granted the 18-year-old Wilbur Cross student a bond of $1,500.
The decision came down on what would have been the first day of Zabaleta-Ramirez’s junior year of high school. It also came more than a month after he was first picked up by immigration authorities as part of a workplace raid of a car wash.
The bond approval means that Zabaleta-Ramirez could be released from ICE custody as early as this weekend, as he moves forward with his application for a green card.
Zabaleta-Ramirez’s bond hearing occurred virtually Thursday afternoon in Massachusetts’s Chelmsford Immigration Court.
The first of a line of cases, Zabaleta-Ramirez’s attorney Christina Colón Williams appeared before Judge Christine Olson on his behalf. Zabaleta-Ramirez was not present in the virtual courtroom, after waiving his appearance.
Judge Olson explained her decision to grant a bond in this case by stating that Zabaleta-Ramirez “doesn’t show danger to the community, has no criminal history … no strong factors for flight risk despite relatively recent entrance to the U.S.”
“No danger, no flight risk,” she concluded. And then she granted a bond of $1,500.
Zabaleta-Ramirez, a native of Guatemala, was grabbed by federal Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents on July 21 during a workplace raid of the Two Brothers Hand Car Wash in Southington.
According to two of Zabaleta-Ramirez’s coworkers, ICE agents weren’t looking for Zabaleta-Ramirez in particular. Instead, the agents reportedly asked all four of the employees present — immigrants from Ecuador, Guatemala, and Honduras — for their IDs and about their authorization to work in this country.
After his arrest, ICE sent Zabaleta-Ramirez to the Plymouth County Correctional Facility in Plymouth, Mass., before sending him south to the Alexandria Staging Facility in Alexandria, Louisiana, and moving to deport him on an “expedited removal” basis. ICE wound up cancelling his deportation flight to Guatemala following the intervention of Colón Williams. Esdrás has been back in detention in Plymouth, Mass., since mid-August.
The only substantive comment that ICE has provided the Independent with so far about the July 21 workplace raid came from Department of Homeland Security Assistant Secretary Tricia McLaughlin, who said that Zabaleta-Ramirez was arrested as part of a “worksite site enforcement operation” on that day.
“This illegal alien entered the country as an unaccompanied minor under the Biden Administration and was released into the country,” McLaughlin said. “He has been placed in immigration proceedings.”
At Thursday’s online immigration court hearing, Andrew Farrell of the Department of Homeland Security’s (DHS) Office of the Principal Legal Advisor made the argument that Judge Olson should not grant Zabaleta-Ramirez bond on the grounds that Zabaleta-Ramirez is a “flight risk.”
Farrell claimed that Zabaleta-Ramirez had not been in the United States for very long, and therefore had not had enough time to form connections in the country. Farrell noted that Zabaleta-Ramirez does not have any criminal history. (In written testimony that Zabaleta-Ramirez submitted to the state legislature earlier this year in support of expanding state Medicaid eligibility for all Connecticut residents up to the age of 26 regardless of their immigration status, he said that he is from Guatemala and that he has lived in New Haven for a little over a year.)
In response, Colón Williams argued Thursday that the government had not satisfied its burden to prove that Zabaleta-Ramirez is a flight risk. She pointed to the “numerous letters” she had submitted to the court that “prove [Zabaleta-Ramirez’s] ties to the local community.”
A high schooler who is actively enrolled in classes, “Esdrás should have been attending his first day of school today,” she told the judge. Zabaleta-Ramirez is dependent on a family member in the United States who is willing to continue caring for him, and he has “no interest in returning to Guatemala.”
Colón Williams also noted Zabaleta-Ramirez’s eligibility for relief, as he has begun a process through juvenile court under the qualification of being a “minor under 21” without support from his parents who cannot return to his home country. With an upcoming hearing in early September, the legal process could culminate in Zabaleta-Ramirez being issued a green card.
A flight risk is someone who “legally has nothing that could keep him here,” Colón Williams clarified in a follow-up interview. That, she argued, is not Zabaleta-Ramirez.
Colón Williams concluded her argument in court on Thursday by requesting that the judge enable Zabaleta-Ramirez to pursue his case outside of custody. She also pointed to the several members of the New Haven community who were in attendance at the hearing to show support. Those included Mayor Justin Elicker, East Rock/Fair Haven Alder Caroline Tanbee Smith, and local immigrant rights activist Fatima Rojas. Colón Williams argued that their presence at Thursday hearing helped prove his ties to the community and lessened his potential as a flight risk.
Judge Olson ultimately sided with Colón Williams and against Farrell, finding that Zabaleta-Ramirez isn’t a flight risk and approving the bond.
Both parties waived appeal of the judge’s decision.
(Update) In an interview after the hearing, East Rock/Fair Haven Alder Tanbee Smith said that the hearing was “really powerful to witness.”
“He’s our New Haven kid,” she said of Zabaleta-Ramirez. “He belongs here, this is his home.”
Tanbee Smith had drafted a letter to be submitted as part of Zabaleta-Ramirez’s court documents that her colleagues on the Board of Alders signed on to. She said that the love and care the city had shown for Zabaleta-Ramirez during his detention was a “model for what’s to come” in the wake of his hoped-for return.
Colón Williams told the Independent that the goal is to get Zabaleta-Ramirez home “as soon as possible, as soon as Plymouth can process his release.” Zabaleta-Ramirez will have to post the full $1,500, and while he likely won’t be released Thursday, she is hoping he will be home ahead of the long Labor Day weekend.